Condensed Into 36 Lines
In the ballroom of an exclusive hotel
my caustic synecdoches unspool promptly
set to a sea of the saddest faces ever traced.
Standing straight in relaxed square-toed shoes
at a podium where restlessness is a hallmark.
I read from creased pages in my nervy poet hands
telling of feats, wants and shrunken prospects.
Also tales of collapsed bridges and erotic subsets
to laugh out-loud moments with scattered applause
gut-wrenching stillness and a fair bit of upheaval.
I explain apologetically about my subversive side
recounting rebelliousness in seventeen syllables
and how we can never tell who is behind the mask.
Yet I will still be reviewed as charming and melancholic
even despondent for attempting to condense such
an imperative piece of work into 36 tight lines.
My brevity, it was unequivocally intentional to protect
excruciating and devoted austerity to fading music
and the invisibility of the ink used to make the mess.
In the ballroom of an exclusive hotel on
the cusp of delivering a virtue that is simultaneously
childlike and terrifying, temperance is hard to implement.
Afterwards, I’ll improvise.
**
I spent some of my rainy day down-time this afternoon
plucking away at a half written poem. I had fun playing with words in between
phone calls, accounting and fearing the roof of our building might peel away
like the lid of a sardine can thanks to the last remnants of Hurricane
Patricia. This afternoon, I was also daydreaming about that writing retreat I
often wish I could take, pondering all things that inspire me and how much
stringing words together truly means to me. Adding and subtracting numbers pale
in comparison to being able to connect words and watch them multiply. I am
grateful I have the knack and the passion for it, even if what I create stinks.
It’s the passion; the big magic (it’s what also prevents me from becoming an
embittered crone).
And I can’t help but wonder, what I’ll write next. Oh,
the suspense.
Creative minds are rarely tidy.
In propinquity,
Nic
Nic, this is one of your most impressive elephants. I had to blow the dust off my dictionary to interpret some of the words, but I like the picture it created in my mind, and the nod to the honesty that appears to the audience as artistry. If people only knew ...
ReplyDeletePoem aside, your passion for wordplay matches mine to some degree. I think yours actually surpasses mine, because of your ability to condense a scenario. You can say in 36 lines what I can say in 36 pages! You may be grateful to have the knack, but you can't possibly imagine how grateful everyone else is that you have it, too.
What a lovely thing to say. Thank you so much!
DeleteAll those times, sitting in agony, to write. Then to hoist yourself up in front of others and share - to risk the critics, the reviews, ridicule and praise - whichever comes, whatever comes from sharing your work, in any form, is the risk that makes this writing thing so intoxicating.
Now, if I could just write 36 pages!